Life and Works

Few Normal Weekends

I recently found it hard to answer when someone courteously asks how my weekend was. It’d be fair to say this is a pointless question, unless the person labours on weekends, he/she has no reason not to enjoy two days off work, no matter how “plain” they were. There’s enough excitement just to keep the alarms silent for two days. Nonetheless this is a safe and sound way to start a small conversation with someone, rather than going straight into work-related nonsense.

My wife and I went on a little date and watched the Wonder Woman movie that is the talk of the town right now. I find these superhero movies very repetitive, each year Marvel and DC dish out a few fresh heroes & sequels. However it’s nice to see a female protagonist for a change.

At first impression you may find WW has a very strong feminist theme, an island-full of “strong, independent” women fighters who train & live with a great purpose. And it gets emphasised again & again throughout the movie, as Diana saved this bloke called Steve Trevor, lead a few men deep into the war zone & gained victory almost single-handedly over the bad guys. I liked the depiction. Indeed there is a fierce strength in every woman, which is created for a good reason – to protect her loved ones & to resist evil, this fierceness sometimes even men cannot contest against.

What I do find interesting, is how relatable we Christians are to the Amazons. Spoiler alert here, the Amazons were created by Zeus to save mankind from the war god Ares, hence they train very hard everyday in preparation to defeat this war god. However as peaceable time goes by, they forget about the war outside and start to live comfortably on their own isolated island. So much so they are reluctant to acknowledge there’s a Great War outside, innocent people are dying, and they are shying away from going out to fight this war, to fight against Ares – which is the very reason they are created for.

You know where I’m going with this, some Christians (and myself very much included) are becoming comfortable living within the safe religious haven. It’s safe to ignore the mess of this world, it’s safe to live a disciplined life myself and not to poke nose in other people’s lives, it’s safe to ignore the needs of this world while we attend to our rituals. Okay… enough ranting. This is very much a note to myself, that I do not forget the great mission that Jesus entrusted us with. Since our lives are redeemed by Christ, we should live with the new purpose that comes with the new identity. And best of all, he will fight for us and we all know he will prevail. It’s nice to see in the movie Diana finally rises to her identity & confront the evil with a determination that all her life is made for this moment. I think this is the determination that we should bring with us to everyday life.

So far this blog has become a movie review… which is not how I originally intended. Watch the movie for yourself, I think there’s something that we can all take away with.

It’s quite late now, next week will be somewhat a quiet week at work (after deadlines). And after that we’ll be going on a short holiday, quite looking forward to some time away.

Followed by some photos, mainly by X-T1 with Fujinon 35mm f2 lens. Or my iPhone 6s edited with VSCO. (too lazy for captions)